West Midlands Metro: plans for east Birmingham extension revived as part of football club move

Plans to run trams through east Birmingham have been resurrected as part of a scheme to relocate Birmingham City Football club stadium and create a Sports Quarter in the city.

The club’s co-owner, Tom Wagner, wants to invest around £3 billion to create the new quarter which, in addition to the new stadium, would house offices, entertainment and restaurants on the campus.

The new West Midlands Metro line to the Sports Quarter would be the first phase of the, yet to be built, East Birmingham to Solihull Extension. It was planned several years ago but has remained on the drawing board ever since. It would help to deliver a vital public transport link to the new development from the city centre.

The proposed 17-kilometre route would allow trams to visit areas further out of the city, including the busy Heartlands hospital. Trams would also visit north Solihull, including Chelmsley Wood and Birmingham Airport, the National Exhibition Centre and the new HS2 Interchange station.

Plans for the new tramline have already been the subject of talks between West Midlands Mayor, Richard Parker and government ministers including Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander.

Proposals prepared by the West Midlands Combined Authority suggest that a relatively small investment in the new transport connection, with an initial ask of £350-400 million, could support billions of pounds of new private-funder schemes and thousands of jobs.

The area covered by the new tramline has been described by local politicians as lacking in jobs and crippled by some of the highest child poverty rates in the country. The Sports Quarter alone is expected to create thousands of new jobs.

Mayor Richard Parker said: "We are working really closely with Government. This is a massive opportunity for our region and the city of Birmingham and my role is to use my powers and commitment to ensure this happens quickly.”

“What often happens is we need public funds to create infrastructure to lure in investors, in this case that has been turned on its head. We are connecting up a necklace of opportunity from the city centre out to north Solihull.”

Building the new lines in phases is nothing new in the West Midlands. The first phase of the latest line is expected to reach the Sports Quarter, within the five-year timescale of the new stadium’s development, with the rest of the route being delivered within a decade.

Although the Government has yet to publicly comment on the plans and any funding that might be available, there are indications that major infrastructure plans are high on the agenda with a possible announcement as soon as June’s spending review.

Additional funding could be generated through the setting up of a Mayoral Development Corporation which would oversee the construction of the new line and help to maximise private sector contributions from developments on the route. However, Parker was clear that the priority was to secure the first phase to the new Sports Quarter – with potential delivery vehicles to be part of a longer discussion.

Construction work on the first section of the east Birmingham route is already under way as part of the Birmingham Eastside extension from the city centre to Digbeth via the Curzon Street HS2 station. It’s being built in two halves after issues accessing the HS2 site.

Tracks in Digbeth are now down, but won’t be used until 2027 following the completion of the new station. Meanwhile, Transport for West Midlands is building a temporary tram stop in Birmingham’s Eastside to allow services to serve the area ahead of that date.

It’s also understood that plans for the Sports Quarter could involve nearby Adderley Park heavy rail station being revamped and possibly moved closer to the development. The station on the main route from Birmingham to London is served by local trains.